Quotes from Brian Tyree Henry

Really trying to find the people who really ride for you and are down for you, that's hard.

I usually get approached by older white ladies of a certain class, with their pearls and, you know, their Talbots on and everything, and they're like, 'We just have to say, we know we're not your demographic, but we love Paper Boi; we really love this show, and we love what you're doing.' It's totally cool.

I think that's the best thing about being black is that we find a way to make our own communities and always give room for people to pull up to our tables. We always provide a way for other people from different walks of life to come into the communities that we have built because we're so used to being excluded.

Atlanta, in itself, is its own living, breathing thing.

You can't share your magic with everyone. Your job is to live within your magic. And if other magical people find you, then let's go and make a brew.

Acting really started for me because I was in a house full of adults. They never shielded their lives from me. They were adults going through this world doing what they had to do. I used to like to watch them and imitate them. They all have their own distinct personalities; even though they're family, we couldn't be more different people.

I'm a huge pin collector.

When I was three years old, one of the first albums I ever heard was Michael Jackson's 'Off the Wall.'

I was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, which is where J. Cole is from. I went up to Washington, D.C., where my mother moved, to stay with her, and then moved back to North Carolina to finish junior high and high school.

I was in show choir in high school.

I stay in contact with my castmates from 'Atlanta' almost every day.

Hip-hop is not about pretense. You can be missing an eye; you can have an ice-cream cone in your face; you can run around with Bantu knots; you can decide to wear gold, all everything. It's not about how you look - it's about what you say. It's about what message you're getting across.

You see the Paper Bois - easy. Personas are easy to touch and see and digest. But you don't get the chance to really see who the Alfreds are. I want to make sure I did that with him.

This is the city that kind of formulated who I am. And, not only that, but to be black in Atlanta is one of the greatest things because you can go anywhere and feel familiar with anyone who's right next to you, from Bankhead to Buckhead.

My sisters were teenagers when I was born, so the last thing they wanted was a little nappy-headed boy running around. I would imitate them or copy things off TV.

I have been the hugest HBO fan since I was 3, watching programming that I had no business watching as a child.

Being in a club - clubs are, like, not my favorite thing.

When people ask me, 'Are you a singer?' I say, 'No, I'm not a 'singer' - but I love the craft of singing,' going in and finding out what that means or why the hell I'm singing in the first place. My thing is really the craft of it.

You can put Trump in the White House, but you need to prepare for a revolt because I'm going nuts.

Perceptions really do define what our realities are. What we're hoping to do with 'Atlanta' is to really shatter that. To shatter it completely wide open. To go from the furthest lane of absurdity to the furthest lane of reality and make them blend.

It's not without its flaws - it's still the South and the Bible Belt - but Atlanta is one of those cities that's really good at uniting people.

If you are conscious and really want change in this world, and you don't vote, then what was all the fighting for? All the things our parents and our parents' parents fought for?

Aja Naomi is one of my good friends.

I dare somebody to go to Atlanta and not have a good time.